Crochet, geometric patterns, and a challenge….. what’s not to like?

When the lovely CraftKitchen people asked, whether I thought it would be possible to crochet with the beautiful “Durable Norwool Plus” sock yarn as well, my creative brain started rattling instantly.

I immediately knew I wanted a graphic pattern, and a quick search for “geometric crochet” and “houndstooth crochet” on Pinterest, gave a wealth of possibilities.
Color swatches were quickly made, and so was my decision to go with the bolder combination. As you can probably see, the blanket is crocheted following the “tapestry technique” – nothing to be scared of, really. In my Norwool Blanket-pattern I’ve included some links to helpful videos, as well as my own tips. One important hint is how to carefully (and easily) “manage” your working and non-working yarn.

I so liked everything about this project and its journey: the pattern, the colors (black is a color, right?), the softness of the blanket, the rather repetitive and thus mindful making, plus – now that it’s finished – its warmth and comfort.

One “houndstooth” motif has 8 dc (width; approx 5,5 cm), and 8 rows (height; approx 10,5 cm).
Adjusting the size of your blanket means multiplying any amount with the stitches per motif (=8 stitches), plus 4 extra on both sides.
Lengthwise it’s a good idea to stop after row 5; it will give you half a motif in color A, and half a motif in color B, looking just like the start of the pattern at the bottom of the blanket.

Tips:
* the blanket is crocheted using solely dc/double crochet stitches, following the tapestry technique. In this particular case it means you’re working with 2 strands of yarn; when you’re working with color A, you carry color B until you need it again, simply by crocheting over color B while working with color A.
Helpful videos can be found here, here and here (last one is in Dutch, but has great visuals).

• when you switch from color A to color B, it’s important to always keep the same yarn at the front of your work (the side you’re working on at that moment – whether this is the RS or the WS). Black/color A was my “main” yarn. Actually, there is no real RS or WS, a tapestry crochet benefit!

• changing colors – for instance from A to B – means you do not completely finish the very last stitch in color A; since we’re working with dc, this means keeping the dc’s two last loops of Color A on your hook, and do the last yarn over and pull through the last two loops with the next color/color B. You’ll see that the last stitch itself is all crocheted in color A, and it’s just the loop on your hook that already shows color B.

• using the diagram means you’ll be reading the pattern from right-to-left, left-to-right, etc. Row 1: reading from right to left; Row 2: reading from left to right; Row 3: reading from right to left; Row 4: reading from left to right, etc (this is when you’re right handed; left handed people like myself usually do it just the other way around).

• in this particular pattern it’s important to keep your crochet rather tight; you might want to go down half a hook size to achieve this.